Part 107
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - Lots More very interesting items/ideas for a Bioshock Rapture MMORPG --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - Part 107 --- --- --- Scene You Never Got to See : After Jack (rather AFTER the Little Sisters drain Atlas/Fontaine of his life-sustaining ADAM goo), then Ryan appears and promises to "get Jack help", and then cuts Fontaine's head off and comments about "having a nice place to put it". So Jack is subsequently deprogrammed by Ryan's experts, and is sent away to the Surface, while Ryan sets out to "Save his city". The 'bad' ending or 'good' ending ? Isn't Jack at that point a major headcase with all the ADAM he ingested in such a short time ? He couldn't even tell that he 'killed' a rather poor animatronic dummy of Ryan when WYK ordered to by Atlas. So all the other hallucinations of a giant Charlie McCarthy Climbing the Empire State Building carrying Fay Raye (who for some reason looks like Jack Black in drag) weren't overly real either... Well that's what happens when you try to follow the story of 'mental' people. --- --- Analysis : ''' So what should we conclude from Infinite BS ??? Elizabeth is her Father's (either one) Daughter ... Evil. Damaged. A murderer, Selfish, Deluded, Insane(?). The Story could have been : Like Baron Frankenstein, the Luteces created a Monster when trying to play god, which would eventually destroy them. (Another missed plot, with the illogical quantumz technicalities reduced to just 'details' as they should have been). --- --- '''Jars of Water in Paupers Drop : Basic utilities broken down ? Not just the waters taste, but general wholesomeness might be the issue. What must've it been like to live under Lamb's fetid regime as conditions declined. It would make coercion easier, as resources dwindled and she controlled what little there was. Imagine what the place must've smelled like with rotting corpses everywhere (and Lamb didn't even have her HQ cleaned up after running it for years...). "Its all for the common good"... Half-crazy Splicers no doubt fell for that one. --- --- Thought : A City floating in Lake Michigan would have been as amazing to 1893. --- --- Half (More?) of the Players STILL Will JUST Want to SHOOT Things : Now what if the MMORPG game still offers this -- except in more interesting ways and results ? Flashback/dream sequences offer many scenarios where free-fire slaughter is not just possible but encouraged. A philosophical improvement might be : more realism that might serve to sicken even the more oblivious couch potato gamer. Jib-O-Meter and settings slider player option to be made available. Play one of Atlas's terrorists, who get rewarded the greater the mayhem cause on the innocent inhabitants of Rapture... Murder, Destroy and Laughter !!!! --- --- Hollerith Punch Cards Used by Columbia Police : Paper punch cards were employed for the 1890 US Census(so would be something that Fink didn't do in his busy schedule of doing everything else in Columbia). So you should have seen these in Columbia as they are very useful to a fantasy police state to track people. Sorting, Tabulating, Taxation, etc... Perfect for racial classification and tracking/control of Columbia's undesireables/serfs and keeping an eye on everyone else (and tracking Tithing and other functions). --- --- North Atlantic Project ''': Ryan must've been planning Rapture well before Sep 1945 (this isn't "wave of the hand" Infinite BS fantasy and its ridiculous crampted timelines). The work to develop additional underwater technology (besides much that Ryan's Industrial empire had previously created for Petroleum Industrial (in other sea operations) and War Work. Then there would be the worldwide surveys to find just the right spot with the geothermal resources and stability. --- --- '''Famous Sayings : "An American doesn't need to Journey to the Promised Land. He builds it Himself" - John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt American Exceptualism isn't all its Cracked up to be - Len Kevine "It really doesn't take that much extra effort to write a game properly" - Me "If half-assed games are all that are available to Players, then that's all that will ever be bought" - Augustus Sinclair "Why work better when fools pay sufficiently for incompetency" - Anonymous --- --- Time Travel Fun : Comstock orders the Luteces to open a Tear so he can watch John Wilkes Booth shoot Lincoln, and when they say they can't, he goes into a rage and kills them (and has Fink dump their bodies into their Particle Playdo machine to dispose of their bodies, resulting in their being spread across the dimensions, allowing them to become major meddlers/troublemakers.) They got even with Comstock by constantly putting cat-hair into Comstock's food. Remember - ALL plots are VALID when you have Infinite Universes ... --- --- Some Parts Of Rapture Are Closer to the Surface : Where you can see some of the light from the Sun (it still dims alot even through its only through 100 feet). Many are Industrial sites (those using alot of air - with 'snorkels' to the surface) Some Agricultural (sunlight for plants) possibly kelp farms (even floating structures for this) Observation Area for Tourists (Why not just go to the Lighthouse for that ?) Top of the Volcano/SeaMount - one part is where the Lighthouse is perched (very close to the surface) But all permanent structures would have to avoid the icebergs that wander by (some protected by being in the leeward/downstream side of the mass of volcano nearest the surface - already must be there or the Lighthouse would have been destroyed by them long ago). Even when protected, waves and storms would require whatever is there to be strongly built. The original transport mechanisms around the Lighthouse would make it a primary location for such facilities near the surface. Docks/Breakwaters/Transfer-hoists and things were there to facilitate Raptures construction. Many were removed but their foundations remain. The tops of the tallest buildings, being only 200 ft from the surface, can see some sunlight dimly (would likey be outshown by the many lights on the buildings). --- --- "STOP IN THE NAME OF THE GREAT CHAIN !!!" ''' : (In Columbia they might shout "STOP IN THE NAME OF BIGOTED CULTIST EXCEPTIONALISM !!!" ) STOP IN THE NAME OF PARIS!!! - heard shouted by, of all people, The Boys Of Silence ... (The Lobotomy 'moral choice' for WAS actually the ONLY escape from the Time Travel Loop Paradox and Stupidity ...) --- --- '''Malfunction Junction (Say it real fast 3 times backwards...) : In The Bioshock MMORPG, Players Toys will break/jam/malfunction often, which will cause them to HAVE to use alternate (and probably less optimal) items, which will require Players to be more versatile (when their favorite toy frequently ceases to work), and to be more calculating/reactive/adaptive. Fun - like having your fancy Boom-stick go 'click-thunk' will need to be followed by rapid reassessment and maybe employing it as an overembellished club. Another source of potential Game Creation Assets - malfunction sounds and effects - upon the Player as well as the Object and the surroundings (and Creation Player's fun upgrading existing items with new appropriate malfunction variations). Implemented in the Game Mechanics kindof like the Crit/Fumble tables the old D&D games had. --- --- Cults Make for Game Fun : What if The most 'devout' of the Comstock worshiper Cultists were all Veggans - racist religious fanatics looking down on those who weren't as 'pure' as themselves. All sing praise of the wonderous Potato, given to us by The Prophet !!! Hallelujah !!! Pass the Butter!! Sounds like at least one small Splicer group you might find in the MMORPG's Rapture ... (sea slime CAN be made edible if you try hard enough ...) --- --- Booker !!! BOWLING BALLS!!! Catch... --- --- Render Me This Mr Ryan !! ''' : I Saw some BS1/BS2 Assets used in a demo of Unreal 4 which had fairly good looking visuals. The MMORPG should not be excessive in its rendering because it will have additional environmental detail and interactive prop counts (and larger variety of assets loaded on-the-fly). As usual, there is a need for the game to target medium capacity hardware. --- --- '''The 'Poor' Will Always Be With Us : How many of these 'down and out' people that Fontaine/Atlas manipulated were really the byproduct of ADAM use ? A whole lot of junkies looking for handouts - easy to manipulate/coerce - Wasn't that what Fontaine wanted (And possibly MADE happen) ??? Drunks are problem enough, but society has handled them for millenia. People poison themselves (booze/drugs/ADAM), and Ryan says "You are responsible for yourself", and Fontaine/Atlas tells them "Its Ryan's fault, and you deserve stuff". Which do you think these "down and out" people will want to hear ? Unfortunately, you only hear reactions from Ryan and NOT from the rest of the people in Rapture who CAME to Rapture to be rid of the handout-kings. (SO A Contrived plot ... Failtopia MADE to Fail) --- --- No 'Stop Time' in the MMORPG : It was too easy a loophole to have combat stop while you accessed a Vending Machine (including buying more Health-kits while a baddie was beating on you - the 'hacking' in BS2 was better about that too). Stop time doesn't happen in MMORPGs, and some substitution of equivalent immunities would be unchallenging (it is a design issue as to what extent AFK/Logouts/ConDrops should be facilitated). Player loopholes like logging out just before you die (run out of HP) won't be needed when the MMORPG is less fatal and other strange things happen for results (and will have happened when you log back on). Many Online games didn't go to the trouble of figuring out when you got disconnected (or the common network/server slowdowns/The-Lag-Monster) and you just got killed off as baddies just kept beating on you while you could do nothing. --- --- Rapture Stock Exchange ? : Would it even exist (or if it did was it anything much that would 'Crash') ? The issue with the Great Market Crash in 1929 was that banks were lending money with little security to people investing in the Market. Would there be Banks willing to do it that way, even if the Lendees hadn't learned the lesson from that mess ? (the market THEN was a "sure thing" with a constant upward spiral as the speculation kept adding into it year after year). Could there be the rampant overproduction (as was the case eventually in the 20s which when the market Crashed made sure there was nothing of value to recover from the companies when their credit dried up) when Rapture would NOT have many massive industries/businesses (the biggest were probably the AE and the City's maintenance department) with stocks anything of the magnitudes needed for the same occurence ? Rapture was too small a place for it to impact the economy the same way, and the majority of businesses were small ones (most without stocks issued). But in this game, vast illogical assumptions were made to facilitate the 'Fail', including something that really wouldnt exist. --- --- Columbia's "Slums" were Far Too Clean - a Sanitized Version of what such (real) Places Looked Like : Nobody who lived in these awful places would clean/pickup anything (for long - They would soon quit when it was apparent they would get no help and it accumulated faster than their efforts). Garbage would accumulate and rot, the smell would be unforgettable. City ordinances (if any) would be ignored if any unpaid work was involved. If you want to simulate and condemn historic squalor, then you might want to actually show some reality. --- --- Why Keep Caricatures for the Graphics ? : Because the closer to real/exact you get, the more your brain says "That isn't right" and "That looks Weird/Wrong" for the tiny details you won't get right unless it costs hugely to make the images near perfect. An then you have to be consistant in that quality or THAT will stand out (and that includes all animations which are a magnitude further effort required to get more 'real'). And in the MMORPG you will interface with more NPCs at a civilized distance (close-up) instead of them flying at you in attack (where you really don't generally get that good a look at them). --- --- Infinite BS : Bullet Sponge Opponents in Sucky Repetitive Battles for the Mindless Violence : Seems more than a few reviewers saw that as the biggest flaw in the game. After all, its IS mostly a Shoot-Em-Up game, and the story matters little to that activity, so the bad combat brands it MEDIOCRE. For most people I wonder what the total fighting/combat minutes were out of the total play-through time ? As short/shrunken as the play-through hours are these days, endless forced combat I guess is a way for the game company to spend less on actual explored content and interactions. --- --- Private Investigators (More than a few in Rapture) : When 'Police' Law Enforcement doesn't have manpower/resources/mandate. Citizens buying 'Justice' (sometimes not quite legally... Same thing existed in our World). Might make for an interesting genre of 'Missions' for Players in the MMORPG (problem though is how to scramble the puzzle so that you can't just go read the solution on the Internetz - is a "Clue" game type mechanism possible ? "Major Ketchup, With A Pipe Wrench, in the Vomitorium..." LA Noire chain of evidence ? --- --- --- Creation Templates (For Objects, Effects, Missions, etc...) : These are Patterns of data with scripting (simplified programming) which allow the rebuilding and customization of game Assets. Parameterized (customizing options which maximizes reuse, and thus not having to hand-craft every detail) The Template has a Scripting component used to control the auto-generation of data for both random data expansion and desired customization (using the parameters which are controlled by the scripting). Usually there is embedded logic which makes sure that valid combinations and values of options are selected. This also helps with minimizing the download of data to the Player's Client machine, when the Client need only get template IDs and parameter info to convert (getting the majority from from disk) into possibly huge-sized data of the Asset used by the game. Most online games already do this, but they load mostly static data and their environment is mostly static. Hierarchical - templates within templates (Templates can 'call' other templates as options for groups of their subcomponents, to fill in additional detail or to override generic Attributes). This maximized the utility of the existing Templates (you don't have to redo the basic elements, you inherit them from another premade template containing those basic elements). The Template has a data component which defines components (and Attributes) of the object to be created (the data can be in the form of tables which the Scripting can select from). Things like textures can be freely/flexibly applied to vary the objects. Simple example : a basic 'Chair' with ALOT of obvious Attributes, which when predefined in a Template would eliminate alot of work creating the customized 'chair' object. There would likely be further specialized Templates for other obvious 'chair' variations (spinning desk chair/recliner/dining-table-chair/barstool/etc...) The attributes include links to animations and reactions to player actions (which can add upto LOTS of work/effort saved by Templatizing such things). --- --- "Quick, the Splicers are coming back, grab some goodies and lets get the hell out of here" ''' : Semi-puzzle time-driven loot sifting Mini-Game (Digging and Deciding against the Clock) Where recognizing the objects is a Skill that is developed (and tests the Player's manual skills with the interface). Some luck of sorting in turning up a Valuable Object (all 3D objects in a jumble, and extracting it). Randomness of the items present there (context appropriate variations), with a mix of useless crap (lots) and a few really nice items. Risk of getting nothing if the time runs out (and ending is more than pressing a button). Various time limit reasons : * QUICK - The Splicers are coming !!! * Room filling with water * The roof is gonna come down !!! * Snatch and run... Can be integrated into a Mission as the payoff phase, or an incidental looting activity. --- --- '''Such Opportunities Lost : A scene of Comstock drinking the blood of Columbia's lower-class inhabitants (how allegorical !!!) ((Now we have a REAL reason why all those stereotyped Minorities and Immigrants are allowed to be present -- their Tasty Tasty Blood !!!! But no Italians ... too much Garlic)) The corpses of the dead unfortunates being fed into Finks Mfgs Sausage making machines, and the expeditions done to continually obtain new 'livestock'. Too Swiftian (google it) for the average computer game player ... Yeah probably. --- --- --- Duke & Dimwit - "Exposing the Pox" ''' : 3 of these Educational presentations (D&D) I saw - yet there probably were many more ... (This in-game (Infinite BS) mechanism seemed to be rather low on 'production values', so it might've been fairly cheap to (create and) employ for another typical 'Achievement' hunt (filler) thing for the game -- with like 64 of them to find (but only counting if you watched em all the way thru - with some 'challenging ones' located in hazardous/hidden locations, or ones 22 minutes long). At least one should have Duke refer to the Vox as "the Pox of Columbia" The usual crude humor can be employed - its targeting kids ("How to use the crapper properly - if you don't, you can die !!!" And "Venereal Disease, Watching out for Encounters with the Lower Classes" "Spitting is for Animals") --- --- '''Herding Splicers : After Ryan neutralized most of Atlas's Splicers and the disruptions and killings drop off significantly, then attempts would have been made to fixup more things in Rapture. There would still be a number of unstable people who had to be kept under control to protect the remaining non-Splicers, and everyone to be organized and put to work repairing and bringing back into operation things important to the City's survival. --- --- Signs, Signs Everywhere : Depending on the environment's degree of degradation - dirt, damage, malfunction and poor maintenance can at least be used to mutate repetitions of the same premade Signs (or repetitive sign style) to look somewhat different. Templates of many methods for doing this would overlay details on the pristine objects. Similar Templates would be done for all object types in the MMORPG. A generalized automatic mechanism could be made to create signs from any text, which might take a while to develop sufficient variations. The Grungifier Templates would help make them less identical in appearance. --- --- Showing Fontaine/Atlas For What He Really Was : An interesting scene would be Atlas needing more ADAM for his Splicer Minions (to control them) grabbing/kidnapping citizens and killing them and then having 'His Little Ghouls' (LS) "Obtain" the ADAM for his supply ... He might even organize scooping up some 'less than recently killed ' bodies for this purpose (Expect New Rapture to have a Bounty on bringing in (old) bodies, to recover the ADAM (still used for medical procedures) and for improvement of the general sanitation.) Since Fontaine's researchers had developed this process, he would know how it worked and would figure out how to do it 'on a shoestring' in some hidden lair (somewhere in the sewers, no doubt). Atlas having his 'Daddy' ACT - being all cutesy to trigger the Little Sister's conditioning -- THAT might be an odd Flashback scene (with him then on the sideline saying "I hate those creepy little brats, and if I didn't need them, then ...". ) --- --- "Adopt, Adapt, and Improve" ''' : Of course in Rapture this already would have been the norm - so the added word would be "Excell" ... Should be seen on a Banner or Mural somewhere public. --- --- '''Historic Pattern : Vox simply would make themselves the new Czars, and kill everyone that resisted... No better than Comstock and his lot (who BTW were NOT America 1912 as was pretended ad nauseum) They probably would be unable to maintain the mechanisms that kept the city working, and one way or another it would spell Columbia's destruction. --- --- --- --- . . .